Yes, that is another guess but so far its all just guesses. And I would question if it really is Activision since they are owned by Vivendi [wikipedia.org] which is based in France so they might have something to gain with a closer tax break zone. EA [wikipedia.org] on the other hand is only a US company so would have more to lose in theory.

Unfortunately linking a Gawker site ruins any credibility, funny, troll, or serious.

We all know it was Activision, after what Kotick did to Infinity Ward I wouldn't put anything past the fucktard.

He's destroying gaming brick by brick, and he knows it. All he cares about is how much money he makes, not any love of the games, industry or any altruistic reason. When someone comes out and says that a revenue stream for the company is it's lawyers, you have to think "do I really want to hand these guys my cash?". Worst thing is, that most don't think about that. The masses now game, so gaming companies care not for the culture, but for how many poor saps they can con into buying their products.

This story has done the rounds on many a gaming site and the general consensus is that it was Activision/Blizzard who stopped this massive tax break from happening.

I know I'm getting beyond TL;DR, but it's strange that a country trying to get out of recession would can a tax break that would have far reaching positive effects in the economy. I could only imagine how many development houses would gear up for major productions in the UK should this tax break go through. Then you see the trickle down effect give the economy a boost. It may not be as big as say opening a brand new copper mine, but it'll be a bigger shot in the arm than not allowing it to go through. The tax break would be offset no doubt by other taxes gathered from higher productivity.

The only reason to put a stop to this would be due to lobbying by a company (companies) that may be adversely effected by this. Maybe Activision are scared they may lose their top devs to new British start ups, maybe they'll lose them to already established British developers who can now afford more/better devs for bigger projects. It all makes sense. Then again, we'll never know. The new UK government is just as corrupt as the previous, and the next will be the same. As with all "developed" nations, the more money you have, the more you can corrupt the parliament.

The only reason to put a stop to this would be due to lobbying by a company (companies) that may be adversely effected by this

There is another alternative, and one that means the tin-foil hat can be left on its hook. Leaving in a tax break for an already profitable part of an economy would have left them open to critisism (and accusations, ironically, of underhand lobbying from the games industry), so what they've done instead is to distribute the breaks around a number of different parts of the small business economy; think of it as spreading the risk.

Thus, we have the lowering of corporation tax; potential (although I think c

Just for the record, businesses can reclaim VAT - it's a consumer level tax, and one that's only applied to non-essential items. Food (unless consumed in a restaurant), Water, and Utilities are all VAT free.

That said, the change is from 17.5% to 20% - so in real terms about a fiftieth of the price. A £1 hike in the cost of a £50 game isn't really going to scare people off much.

Just for the record, businesses can reclaim VAT - it's a consumer level tax, and one that's only applied to non-essential items.

Yes - although I didn't explicitly state it, that was my reasoning behind it hitting B2C (specifically, because it lowers the spending power of the consumer) not B2B. That said, when Labour reduced VAT temporarily from 17.5% to 15%, I don't recall the (admittedly potentially biased) media reporting a massive upswing in spending, so I can't see that this increase will cause a massive downswing.

Food (unless consumed in a restaurant), Water, and Utilities are all VAT free.

Unfortunately, you appear to have been misinformed. VAT on electricity and gas is charged at 5%. Depending upon th

Unfortunately linking a Gawker site ruins any credibility, funny, troll, or serious

and this ruins your credibility, you read kotaku in the link and you didn't even read it, the article is an interview with kotick in which he talks about a meeting with steve jobs when he was young, not about steve jobs sabotaging the tax cut, this is a piece of the interview so you don't have to enter the dark land of gawker

"I was really scared about the meeting because he was like my hero," Kotick said. "I showed it to him and he started screaming at us. He threw it on the floor and said it was a piece of

Interesting read, and a good insight but personally I suspect the guy wasn't being sincere. His suggestion that his comments get taken out of context because they were meant for investors is one thing, but his fundamental problem is that his words have carried through into the games his firm churns out. The fact is he has taken the fun out of some series, he is trying to charge more for some games.

So how can gamers view his comments as being merely taken out of context, when his comments have been followed

Excuse me, but does it look like I was supporting Activision/Blizzard? I mentioned that Bobby Kotick, the CEO of Activision, is a big bully and that it was probably Activision who lobbied the UK. And according to what you posted, I was correct. Does that mean that I'm sucking up to Activision and stroking Bobby's dick for more COD games? No.

Doesn't make sense for it to be EA. They have Bright Light and Criterion in the UK. They would have a lot to gain from tax breaks and it would be easy for them to shift a lot of development from mainland Europe to the UK.

Think big and having contracts with the UK gov.
Would some 2 bit animated comic book set to music cubic sweatshop.com have the ability to suggest problems in the games area could flow over to existing projects in the UK?
Very few multinationals have the connections to shape policy, most band together after laws have passed, demanding changes and get laws scrapped via trade deals ect.
Trace the cash and leverage.

really?.. they wouldnt be the first country to put tax breaks in for creative sectors.. seems like the Other countries already have the unfair advantage over the UK.. this would be more like leveling the field.

What genius in the newly-minted government thought, "Oh dear, we might be giving an unfair advantage to a premier entertainment industry sector of the 21st century, we mustn't have that in little old England, what?"

And here I was thinking only the US and Australia had truly effective lobbyists who could convince the government to act in their interests instead of the country's.

What genius in the newly-minted government thought, "Oh dear, we might be giving an unfair advantage to a premier entertainment industry sector of the 21st century, we mustn't have that in little old England, what?"

Look up State Aids. It's less than likely to be a lobbyist, and more likely to be m'learned friend dropping a word in George's ear about having lunch with Joaquín Almunia, on behalf of a non-UK based developer.

Surely the competition commission will be looking at competition between private enterprises and what government is doing to foster that, rather than trying to equialise competition between countries? It's not like tax laws are uniform across the Union to begin with, and it's not as though other Union members don't subsidise or otherwise champion specific industry sectors.

Were the competition commission's approach to be based on consumer interest, the response should be something along the lines of "it's up

The economy is bankrupting the UK. Fark puts it succinctly: "Facing a massive budget deficit, the UK to cut welfare, increase the VAT to 20 percent, and impose a new tax on anyone who brings one of those damn vuvuzelas back from the World Cup". Chancellor George Osborne is doing what all countries should do in that situation but are afraid to do, due to the unlikelihood of reelection. The country is damn near bankruptcy, the whole European continent is over-leveraged on debt and Britain is doing their best to make an example by balancing their budget. Tax handouts to the entertainment industry don't help balance the budget. Insert snarky comment about US legislators growing some balls and balancing our budget here...

LONDON -- Setting the scene for years of potential strife with the powerful public-sector unions and their allies in the Labour Party, Britain's new coalition government on Tuesday unveiled the most severe package of spending cuts and tax increases since the early days of Margaret Thatcher's era.

George Osborne, the chancellor of the exchequer, held the budget box as he left 11 Downing Street for Parliament on Tuesday.After only six weeks in office, the government of Prime Minister David Cameron took what his coalition of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats acknowledged was a historic gamble: that austerity measures will help balance the government's books without pitching the country into a double-dip recession.

The cuts and tax increases, including average budget reductions of 25 percent for almost all government departments over the next five years, will make Britain a leader among European countries, including Ireland, Greece and Spain, competing to show they can slash spending and appease investors worried about surging debt. But the sharp reductions defy conventional economic wisdom, which holds that governments should increase spending to stimulate growth when the private sector is weak.

The steps outlined to the House of Commons by George Osborne, the chancellor of the Exchequer, would cut the annual government deficit by nearly $180 billion over the next five years, shrinking Britain's public sector and instituting tough reductions in public housing benefits, disability allowances and other previously sacrosanct aspects of the country's $285 billion welfare budget.

Only health and international aid spending would be protected from the 25 percent cuts for government departments by 2015, the steepest fiscal spending reductions since the 1930s. Mr. Osborne also announced a two-year wage freeze for all but the lowest paid among Britain's six million public servants and a three-year freeze on benefits paid to parents for rearing children, in addition to new medical screening for people claiming disability benefits, part of a bid to cut $16 billion from the annual welfare budget.

Mr. Osborne also announced a raft of tax increases, though he was at pains to say that the government's plan to sharply reduce the country's $1.4 trillion national debt would rest on making roughly four pounds in spending cuts for every pound in tax increases, a point of considerable political weight in a country that is already among the highest-taxed in Europe.

The new taxes include an increase next year to 20 percent from 17.5 percent in the value-added tax on most goods and services, and an increase in the capital gains tax, to a new high of 28 percent, to curb what Mr. Osborne described as rich people in Britain "paying less tax than the people who clean for them." At the same time, changes in income tax will remove nearly 900,000 of Britain's poorest people from the income tax system altogether, and corporate taxes will also be reduced over a five-year period, to 24 percent from 28 percent.

To be fair though, the tax break was only something like £40 mill. If the UK had attracted additional game developers to the degree Canada has from it's tax breaks for game developers it could've easily made that back in tax and then a whole lot more.If this tax break was dropped as part of the fiscal responsibility plans I imagine that they decided that a £40 mill break wasn't enough to attract additional developers, and they'd likely have had to offer higher breaks to attract developers for it

Increasing the VAT will barely raise revenues if it does at all; it will mostly just lead to less consumer spending. A "handout" for the games industry might encourage a studio or two to move to or increase its operations in the UK, which would almost certainly raise revenues at least directly, maybe even net them some direct tax, and the halo effect on the surrounding economy from new jobs and investment cannot be underestimated. And I'd assume it would be a relatively effective incentive measure vs. using

The important thing to remember is that when people (on average) are making LESS than they did a year ago, they are barely getting by. For simplicity, if in 2009, for every $110 they paid 11 and spent 99, fine, and they consumed all of it. Now they are making 88 and paying 8, thus spending $80. They have already reduced their spending because they had no choice, and there is no longer "disposable" income as it takes the $80 to just pay the basics. Now you increase the tax, you are biting into basics, fo

- From April 2011, the threshold at which employers start to pay National Insurance will rise by the rate of inflation plus £21 per week.- Corporation Tax will be cut next year to 27%, and by 1% annually for the next three years, until it reaches 24%.- The small companies' tax rate will be cut to 20%.- Tax relief for the video games industry will be scrapped.- People setting up new businesses outside London, the South East and the east of England will be exempt from £5,000 of National Insurance

Even if you're correct, it doesn't matter. The point of the VAT rise and the emergency budget in general is to secure investor confidence so that the UK can continue to borrow cheaply. People think the VAT rise will raise revenue, ergo they are happy to continue to lend to a country they are convinced will be able to repay them.

However a large portion of the budget would have been sorted out before the Tories came into power, the rest of it being nasty surprises left by Labour and some manoeuvring to keep the Lib Dems happy (the increase in allowance for the lowest tax band being a big issue for them).

However, these tax breaks for the gaming industry were not only pre-election pledges, they were pre-election pledges for both parties.

This whole thing has annoyed me so much I actually filed a FOIA request with the house of com

The UK did give the Games industry a tax cut; small businesses and large businesses received a massive break in terms of what they have to pay. All this games tax relief would have done is given large UK games companies a third tax cut.

Currently they don't have to pay NI on the first 10 employees, pay less tax before they are up to corp' tax levels, and even when paying corporation tax they have to pay less than any other western country.

Remember, the zero percent chance of sunshine is a bonus to nerds who prefer damp dank dark basements to ply their neferious trade.

Putting a game company on Hawaii is a surefire way to not get any talent what so ever. Proof? Name a single game company from a lush tropical paradise.

Nope, instead they are from the coldest frozen wasteland in the world: Canada. Nothing like sub-zero temperatures and a complete absence of sunlight for half of the year to drive a coder to his warm PC and start cranking out software.

Open a development shop on the north-pole and you will get the best MMORPG ever produced in six months time.

There's been non-stop sunshine in south-east England for the past couple of weeks. Being English, we've started to moan about it (garden could do with some water, fed up with the humidity and 28'C heat, etc).

Take a look at the weather forecast [bbc.co.uk]. Current observations at 11:00: completely clear sky, 23'C, 3 km/h wind.

There's been non-stop sunshine in south-east England for the past couple of weeks. Being English, we've started to moan about it (garden could do with some water, fed up with the humidity and 28'C heat, etc).

There's a big difference between UK sunny and sunny sunny. Trust me, the sunny you get there is a pale imitation of real sunshine.

There's a big difference between UK sunny and sunny sunny. Trust me, the sunny you get there is a pale imitation of real sunshine.

I have left this country, you know;-). Yes, we're at 53 degrees north or so, but there's still a completely clear sky and hardly any breeze right now.

According to these tables: 40 degrees [builditsolar.com], 56 degrees [builditsolar.com] there's actually more solar radiation here than in, say, the USA at this time of year (because of the longer day) and only a very slight reduction in the peak sunlight -- 279 rather than 271 units.

They didn't bother to name "who" opposed/sabotaged the tax break, even though the only entity which could oppose it, according to the gist of the article, would be an outside entity, because only an outside entity would imply an unfair advantage towards UK gaming companies. But why would the outside entity not be named, if it is a UK article about UK gaming companies? How could an external company actually persuade UK politicians that it would be an unfair advan

Perhaps it was simply felt that there was better bang for buck elsewhere?

That's not really how it works. If such a tax cut would really have produced a greater income than it would have cost, then it wouldn't matter if there were better returns elsewhere - it's self financing, so you can do the other things as well. And, because it's a tax cut, the real numbers only appear in a year's time - the predicted increased income goes on the forecasts along with the predicted loss in receipts.

More probably, they decided that TIGA's numbers were not realistic and that it would not

How could an external company actually persuade UK politicians that it would be an unfair advantage to UK citizens that it would be unfair for a non-UK gaming company to have tax breaks?

(Did you mean 'for a UK gaming company? I got confused with all the negatives.)

I think this is an important question, whichever way it was meant. Nothing in TFA itself convinces me that this is anything more than an attempt to stir up some publicity for the individual who wrote it.

A question that Develop should answer: why are you not naming the company in question? Possiblity of legal action (as you have no evidence), or because they don't actually exist?

Yes, because we all know objectively that [your chosen political party here] is perfect and [any other political party] are immoral scum, and would plunge the earth into darkness, illiteracy and overabundance of [insert bad thing here] if they regained power.

Am I doing it right? Perhaps not polarised enough, and I need to detach from reality a little more?

Other MPs are statistically irrelevant.Normally that would be the case but afaict those "other MPs" are why we ended up with a tory+lib coalition. lab+lib would have more seats than the tories but would not have got an outright majority due to the presence of smaller parties.

Tax cuts are used to encourage investment in a given field, to encourage a small-but-profitable industry to become larger. Industry growth create jobs which creates spending etc. etc., and when the taxes are switched back on, you now have more games companies paying taxes to the government. That "pays back" the money they lost by cutting taxes. It's only something you'd use in a nascent area, you wouldn't use it on an industry (North Sea oil exploration, say) that's as big as it's going to get for obvious reasons.

I'm probably missing something, but why would the video game industry get special tax cuts? Is it because they can't sell enough games to cover the costs?

No, it's because the industry is relatively successful and a tax break now would provide stimulus for increasing foreign investment and expansion of the industry. At least, that was the argument for the cuts. On the counter side there are the questions of:

Where would this foreign investment come from when the rest of the world's economy is not really in such a great state?

Is expansion really possible for an industry that produces luxury goods in a recession when spending on luxuries is typically reduce

"...This company had apparently viewed game tax relief as a measure that would have given the UK an unfair advantage over other nations."

Wait...over here in the US they're telling us that increasing taxes is an economic stimulus and will create jobs, stimulate investment, and grow the economy. Wouldn't increasing the gaming software sector's taxes be an incentive for growth instead of a burden if that's true?

Teenages are a dificult people because need to explore how fit on the world. Countrys are somewhat like that, because has to fit in the world. Lets look at the japanese, for a success story, from the medieval ages to industrial ones, really quickly. A country with not natural resources, but a powerfull industry. Other countrys rich in resources are poor. Countrys like Irak are poor in a way, even with the oil.

The UK not invented the videogames, but is a area where the UK culture can kick in, and be amazing. So UK is usefull to the world, and videogames are part of it. So videogames are more important for UK that what we see nowdays.

Of course, the Americans will build giganteous industries, and will bully everyone outside of the area. Maybe you have to fight that, if you want something to do in life. Leting the americans suck another industry away for thenselves, is bad for USA, is bad for UK and is bad for the world. "Blockbusters" could be a good industrial thing, but is poor enteirnament. Good production values are a nice thing to have, but what about soul? what about deep? what about FUN?. Blockbuster games are (in a way) like Soviet era buildings: devoid of life.

Teenages are a dificult people because need to explore how fit on the world. Countrys are somewhat like that, because has to fit in the world. Lets look at the japanese, for a success story, from the medieval ages to industrial ones, really quickly. A country with not natural resources, but a powerfull industry. Other countrys rich in resources are poor. Countrys like Irak are poor in a way, even with the oil.

1. Has to have pull with UK gov and parties.
Both political side and the public service ie the Jim Hacker's and Humphrey Appleby's.
2. Has to have had a track record of trying this and getting away with it.
lets see, dislikes free hand outs from any foreign gov, has the size to get access and press for it and makes games?
Well all I can think of is Japan and its Tron efforts. The US gov seems to have made it clear that an OS backed by gov funding was bad. Perhaps games backed by a gov could also be bad

It's the most useless article ever. Absolutely nothing in it other than what barely amounts to a rumour without any details, juicy or otherwise.

News at 11: "industry lobbies government... some guy had a conversation with a government minister encouraging him to do pretty much what he eventually did, here's absolutely no details on the story because we have no evidence and we might be called out on it". They're even asking people not to speculate in the comments.

Please mod parent up. I would like to encourage more US companies to outsource to India.
As a UK resident, I am currently doing pretty well charging US companies ten or more times as much to fix code as the Indian companies that originally charged to write it. The more US companies outsourcing development to India, the better for the British economy.

This is my LAST post on Slashdot. Most people I'm sure would be grateful. You IDIOTs who marked me Troll will never see me again. Slashdot is a waist (sic for all the grammar Nazis who can only argue through logical fallacies). If people can't tell the difference between a Troll and a very thoughtful analogy that took over an hour to refine, then something is VERY, VERY wrong.

You people are VERY quick to insult me (when you don't have Moderator points). And VERY quick to moderate up VERY simple, thoughtless

The UK is near bankrupt, it is involved in two wars, three if you count Ireland were the peace process is measured by the number of people killed. It is production is in shambles and the economic sector in ruins. It can't pay for its welfare or its healthcare. It politics are divived up with the conservatives now having to rule with the liberals and all this guy thinks of is to get kids playing soccer so the national team has a chance. Oh yeah, that is worth paying taxes for.

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. - Unknown

I'm not actually a football fan and in my 48 years I've never once been to a professional football match, nor have I supported any football teams since I was about 12 years old and at school - the closest I get to being a sports fan is watching the occasional rugby match.

However, given the choice of seeing my taxes sunk into the pockets of fat American games company CEOs or seeing it used for getting kids playing sport so that we can hopefully have some excellent sportsmen and women (not the primadonna cele

...I would rather see the money from the tax breaks going to finance local sports and getting kids interested in kicking a ball around so that we have some chance in the next 20 years of putting together a national football team worthy of wearing the "Three Lions".